# ASB password scare and related bans



## Zhorken (Mar 17, 2015)

*EDIT 3/18: See this post for full details.*

So, as opaltiger previously posted, res (1. Luftballon/sreservoir) and Mai stole people's passwords from the old Battle for Asber forums, as well as some other ASB-related forums res had, and used them to get into people's TCoDf accounts.  The forum admins have also banned blazheirio889, allitersonance, and Crazy Linoone in connection with the same event — we're still investigating, but we're pretty confident that the current bans will stand, and we're moving forward based on that assumption.  We'll provide more specific information later.  One of res's sockpuppets, Noel, has been banned as well.

The admins have reset a few dozen people's passwords, mostly people who were part of the Battle for Asber event.  They logged everyone out of the forums last night, too — changing your password apparently isn't enough to boot people out of your account if they're already logged in.  I also reset all the same people's passwords on the ASBdb, as I already posted there; I PMed everyone temporary passwords, but if you didn't get one, or yours doesn't work, let me know.  There was also one particular false alarm: the same IP showed up for res's account and several other people's accounts, but it turns out that IP belongs to some kind of Google compression server for mobile Chrome.

As for actual game-related followup: the banned members should immediately be considered DQ'd from any battles they were in.  If they were reffing your battle, you can go ahead and ask for an emergency ref.  We've cleared the "battles awaiting refs" list of any challenges involving them, but feel free to repost those challenges for someone else to take.  I'll be taking care of ref quizzes for the time being, Metallica Fanboy will post regarding the tournament soon, and we'll contact people shortly about ref test battles.  Negrek has also offered to help out with things for a while.  If there's anything I haven't thought of, feel free to bring it up.

ASB will keep rolling just fine.  I know some people are thinking "lol classic TCoD", so I'd like to be candid about the fact that, yeah, it's been six weeks and we've already had some pretty bewildering drama.  But we're confident that this should be the end of it.  Things have been going really well so far despite everything, and we're all dedicated and we've all put way too much work into this to let it fall apart now.


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## I liek Squirtles (Mar 17, 2015)

How did you find out Noel was res's sockpuppet? Same IP?


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## Negrek (Mar 17, 2015)

Multiple same IP's, yep.


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## Zhorken (Mar 17, 2015)

Yeah, three IPs, all shared with res.

Also I've updated the first paragraph a little based on some new info from Negrek.


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## Zekrom_B0lt (Mar 17, 2015)

As for the pokemon belonging to the 6 banned accounts, will the pokemon be given to those interested or will they be given out by RNG Drawing or some other method (ex: a seperate tourney maybe ) ?


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## Autumn (Mar 17, 2015)

_why_


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## Zhorken (Mar 17, 2015)

Zekrom_B0lt said:


> As for the pokemon belonging to the 6 banned accounts, will the pokemon be given to those interested or will they be given out by RNG Drawing or some other method (ex: a seperate tourney maybe ) ?


I don't think we want to get into that, and regardless, I don't think dumping four hundred free Pokémon on the league is a good idea, logistically speaking.



Altissimo said:


> _why_


I KNOW RIGHT


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## shy ♡ (Mar 17, 2015)

Zekrom_B0lt said:


> As for the pokemon belonging to the 6 banned accounts, will the pokemon be given to those interested or will they be given out by RNG Drawing or some other method (ex: a seperate tourney maybe ) ?


No.


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## Zekrom_B0lt (Mar 17, 2015)

i was only wondering

Btw Will they return to the db to be re-bought ?


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## Vipera Magnifica (Mar 17, 2015)

I'm still sad that so many of the people on this forum were part of the "Asberluminati". These were people I trusted and looked up to, and to see them turn on other members of the forum is... Well, it's really quite awful :(

I really, _really_ want to believe some of them were innocent, but I suppose we'll have to see what the admins' investigations find out.


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## I liek Squirtles (Mar 17, 2015)

Vipera Magnifica said:


> I'm still sad that so many of the people on this forum were part of the "Asberluminati". These were people I trusted and looked up to, and to see them turn on other members of the forum is... Well, it's really quite awful :(
> 
> I really, _really_ want to believe some of them were innocent, but I suppose we'll have to see what the admins' investigations find out.


This. So much.

I'm especially sad bluzzy and Linoone were in on this. :(


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## Zhorken (Mar 17, 2015)

Yeah, same. :/  Things were going really well and this came out of nowhere.  Like I said, though, at this point we're pretty sure about the whole thing, and nobody was banned just for being friends with res.


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## Autumn (Mar 17, 2015)

_Can you really trust anyone?_


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## Noctowl (Mar 17, 2015)

Zekrom_B0lt said:


> i was only wondering
> 
> Btw Will they return to the db to be re-bought ?


...no?

I just can't believe this has happened, and so many people too. It just seems so silly and kinda heartbreaking at the same time.


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## Superbird (Mar 17, 2015)

This is quite saddening, but what happens is what happens, I guess. I am somewhat curious about particularly what happened, more specifically "possible password theft", or, i dunno, stuff about how these investigations work and what's being investigated and etc, but that's mostly just because I'm curious how things work. If the admins feel it's necessary to do what they're doing, we need to trust them, however unfortunate it might be.


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## Vipera Magnifica (Mar 17, 2015)

I still don't understand what these members could possibly stand to gain by accessing other accounts, so it all just seems so bizarre to me. 

I love all of you on this forum so it really pains me to see something like this happen :(


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## RespectTheBlade (Mar 17, 2015)

Vipera Magnifica said:


> I'm still sad that so many of the people on this forum were part of the "Asberluminati". These were people I trusted and looked up to, and to see them turn on other members of the forum is... Well, it's really quite awful :(
> 
> I really, _really_ want to believe some of them were innocent, but I suppose we'll have to see what the admins' investigations find out.


I have the same feeling; even though I wasn't exactly close friends with any of the members that got banned, many of them were long-standing members of the forum and were in fact quite nice from the few conversations that I happened to have. 

I really do hope that this whole thing will blow over somehow.


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## Music Dragon (Mar 17, 2015)

Altissimo said:


> _Can you really trust anyone?_


Me, I'm dishonest, and a dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. Honestly, it's the honest ones you want to watch out for, because you can never predict when they're going to do something incredibly... stupid.


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## Zekrom_B0lt (Mar 17, 2015)

Zekrom_B0lt said:


> i was only wondering
> 
> Btw Will they return to the db to be re-bought ?


I meant the pokemon


As for the test battles that the banned people were in


example: 

___________  vs mai


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## Negrek (Mar 17, 2015)

> I am somewhat curious about particularly what happened, more specifically "possible password theft", or, i dunno, stuff about how these investigations work and what's being investigated and etc, but that's mostly just because I'm curious how things work. If the admins feel it's necessary to do what they're doing, we need to trust them, however unfortunate it might be.


We're still working on it, and we'll provide more information once we're certain we've got things worked out. We just wanted to get some kind of announcement out now, since we knew people were nervous/confused about all the bannings.


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## shy ♡ (Mar 17, 2015)

Zekrom_B0lt said:


> I meant the pokemon
> 
> 
> As for the test battles that the banned people were in
> ...


There is no numbered supply of pokemon. They are unlimited pixels. There is nothing to return to the db and you can always buy more of those pokemon when you have the cash.

Please ask these questions in the asb questions thread, if you have to.


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## DrClef (Mar 17, 2015)

LOL, morons.

Good, they got what they deserved. Thank you admins!


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## Phantom (Mar 17, 2015)

... too late to say I told you so, from back when I knew res and bluzzy were talking bad about members on their other forums and I screen capped proof? Too soon?

Anywho, good riddance. 

Do we know what exactly they were accessing people's accounts for? How did you discover this was happening?


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## Murkrow (Mar 17, 2015)

Is the damage control because of this what has made some of the images on the forums (favicon, the "who's online" button, etc.) to revert to their vbulletin defaults?

-Me, asking the _really_ important questions


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## Negrek (Mar 17, 2015)

Butterfree took this opportunity to upgrade the board software; I imagine that's the culprit.


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## hopeandjoy (Mar 17, 2015)

Vipera Magnifica said:


> I'm still sad that so many of the people on this forum were part of the "Asberluminati". These were people I trusted and looked up to, and to see them turn on other members of the forum is... Well, it's really quite awful :(
> 
> I really, _really_ want to believe some of them were innocent, but I suppose we'll have to see what the admins' investigations find out.


These are my thoughts too. I guess I should know better, having been a member for such I long time, but I've always been blind to these kind of things.


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## Phantom (Mar 17, 2015)

Lol, Murkrow, I noticed that too. 

Also, for the people that asked what's to be gained. Some people are stupid, like me, and used the same password multiple places. And they use their personal email for the forums... the personal email I use to communicate with my job... doctors. Pay bills. Etc. It can be a huge breach of privacy and I realize I'm an idiot. All fixed now of course. 

How are we going to deal with alts? Proxy alts? And was that newbie that was banned yesterday night one of their attempts to rejoin? Are we going to get more mods to help police or anything like that? Am I ever going to shut up? 

Sorry, so many questions.


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## Music Dragon (Mar 17, 2015)

Phantom said:


> ... too late to say I told you so, from back when I knew res and bluzzy were talking bad about members on their other forums and I screen capped proof? Too soon?


Yes. Has there _ever_ been a situation in which "I told you so" was welcome?


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## Negrek (Mar 17, 2015)

@Phantom: The same way we always do; by being watchful and banning them when they appeared. We already went through and cleaned out various alts (Noel, for example). We'll be more vigilant than usual after this.

The newbie banned last night was my bad. They're unbanned.


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## Stormecho (Mar 17, 2015)

I... really don't know what to say - mai's been my friend for a while so this just... really blindsided me

why was this even a thing??? what the fuck guys

I've never managed to even get into asb properly so there's a lot of... history and past drama that's currently escaping me but just _ugh_


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## Phantom (Mar 17, 2015)

Music Dragon said:


> Yes. Has there _ever_ been a situation in which "I told you so" was welcome?


Not usually. But, ah, yeah.


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## Arylett Charnoa (Mar 17, 2015)

I suppose things never change. It's a good thing I decided to take my undefined hiatus from ASB when I did. Stuff like this just convinces me not really to invest myself too much in this place again. Drama like this has no place in my life anymore. I'll probably be watching this situation from the shadows in curiosity as I've been for the last few days, but I'm just glad that it's not anything I'm involved in. Still, it is surprising that some of these members were on in this.


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## Butterfree (Mar 17, 2015)

Yeah, among the other security measures we took I finally upgraded vBulletin to 3.8.8, and that managed to overwrite a bunch of images because ugh. I'll need to hunt down wherever I have the originals saved.


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## Phantom (Mar 18, 2015)

Mmm Butterfree, maybe excuse for new shiny looking styles?

PleasenokillingPhan.


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## Coloursfall (Mar 18, 2015)

Ether's Bane said:


> I think what's really scary is the names involved.
> 
> These guys were ostensibly among the most skilled ASB players ever (in fact, before the scandal, I had two of them as my #1 and #2 all-time), but were  actually doing it dishonestly.


Yeah, okay. No. I'm gonna step in here now even if I said to myself I wouldn't because This is going too far.

Kusa, Blazhy, and CL were *not* cheating at ASB. I don't think you even _can_ cheat at ASB aside from funnelling Pokemon or money around. Orders are posted in public for the most part, and these three were all very skilled players before this unfortunate little incident happened.

I will just come out and say I do not agree with a number of events that have transpired here. The potshots at what are/were for the most part hard-working and skilled players, and people I _respect_, are uncalled for and quite rude. The core of what happened here is res and Mai's actions, and while I don't know _all_ of what may have gone on, I have reason to still trust and respect the other three.

Think what you want but it is _entirely unnecessary_ to be throwing around "I knew it" and "I told you so" or whatever other nasty things about half the people involved here. You can be disappointed or sad or whatever _without_ being a dick.

_Thanks._


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## hopeandjoy (Mar 18, 2015)

Coloursfall said:


> Yeah, okay. No. I'm gonna step in here now even if I said to myself I wouldn't because This is going too far.
> 
> Kusa, Blazhy, and CL were *not* cheating at ASB. I don't think you even _can_ cheat at ASB aside from funnelling Pokemon or money around. Orders are posted in public for the most part, and these three were all very skilled players before this unfortunate little incident happened.
> 
> ...


Quite frankly given the way some users have acted outside of tCoD about this, I don't have much sympathy for you all.


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## Ether's Bane (Mar 18, 2015)

Coloursfall said:


> Yeah, okay. No. I'm gonna step in here now even if I said to myself I wouldn't because This is going too far.
> 
> Kusa, Blazhy, and CL were *not* cheating at ASB. I don't think you even _can_ cheat at ASB aside from funnelling Pokemon or money around. Orders are posted in public for the most part, and these three were all very skilled players before this unfortunate little incident happened.
> 
> ...


I didn't mean for it to come off that way, but I see what you mean.

When I said "dishonestly", I didn't mean that they were necessarily cheating - just that they may have been roped into all of this. (Note "may have been" - I don't claim to know everything that has happened)

I do agree that no matter what happens next, the ones at the core of this are still res and Mai.

Sorry for the misunderstanding.


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## Autumn (Mar 18, 2015)

hopeandjoy said:


> Quite frankly given the way some users have acted outside of tCoD about this, I don't have much sympathy for you all.


What way would that be? o.o


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## hopeandjoy (Mar 18, 2015)

Altissimo said:


> What way would that be? o.o


Those who know know.

If you thought you could turn me against this forum, you have another thing coming.


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## opaltiger (Mar 18, 2015)

Coloursfall said:


> I will just come out and say I do not agree with a number of events that have transpired here. The potshots at what are/were for the most part hard-working and skilled players, and people I _respect_, are uncalled for and quite rude. The core of what happened here is res and Mai's actions, and while I don't know _all_ of what may have gone on, I have reason to still trust and respect the other three.


People have the right to be angry. But I agree with you that direct, public attacks on the people involved are uncalled for. Please be civil, everyone.

That said, I would also appreciate it if everyone withheld final judgement on this for now. We're working very hard to be absolutely sure that we've taken the right course of action, and we are fully prepared to explain ourselves once that's done. If you still disagree with our actions after that, that's your prerogative, but please do wait until then.


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## Vipera Magnifica (Mar 18, 2015)

Look, we need to be respectful of other members and not make disparaging comments about the members in question until the full truth comes to light. If it turns out they were framed, how do you think they would feel if they came back to read some of these negative comments?

I know this is difficult for many of us, but let's not create a divide between us because of this. I know it's very foolish and idealistic of me, but I want to believe that most of this is just a big misunderstanding. Maybe it's true, but maybe those in question really did play a part in the stealing of passwords. I think we should reserve judgment until we know all the facts.


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## Flora (Mar 18, 2015)

Okay, I don't typically get involved in ASB stuff, because quite frankly I'm utter shit at Pokemon battling in general, BUT.

Yeah, we probably shouldn't be saying "I knew it" or "I told you so," because that's generally kinda rude.

BUT, on the other hand, there's a bunch of people saying generally rude things about people who WEREN'T banned, and that's equally uncalled for.

Really, guys. We don't know all the circumstances involved; the only people that really know what's going on are the mods. Zhorken even said she'd provide more specifics later, and for all we know some of the bans might not even stand!


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## Ether's Bane (Mar 18, 2015)

Vipera Magnifica said:


> Look, we need to be respectful of other members and not make disparaging comments about the members in question until the full truth comes to light. If it turns out they were framed, how do you think they would feel if they came back to read some of these negative comments?
> 
> I know this is difficult for many of us, but let's not create a divide between us because of this. I know it's very foolish and idealistic of me, but I want to believe that most of this is just a big misunderstanding. Maybe it's true, but maybe those in question really did play a part in the stealing of passwords. I think we should reserve judgment until we know all the facts.


Very true. Would give you a rep if I could.

There's still a long way to go yet.

For my part, I've taken down my post, which I will admit was made in a bit of a rush of anger more than anything else - I just wasn't very rational about it.


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## Autumn (Mar 18, 2015)

hopeandjoy said:


> Those who know know.
> 
> If you thought you could turn me against this forum, you have another thing coming.


if you're talking to me with that second statement that is absolutely not what i was ... trying to do (seriously what), i just wanted some more information


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## hopeandjoy (Mar 18, 2015)

Altissimo said:


> if you're talking to me with that second statement that is absolutely not what i was ... trying to do (seriously what), i just wanted some more information


No, it was to the person who angered me in the first place. You're fine Alti.


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## ultraviolet (Mar 18, 2015)

I'd just like to post for now that we had _very good reasons_ to ban the people involved, and not because of like, politics or whatever.

In addition, yeah, it's really a dickish move to be like 'I told you so!' and whatnot, especially when you don't know everything that has transpired. C'mon guys.


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## Negrek (Mar 18, 2015)

It's taking us a bit longer than expected to get everything resolved. At this point, we expect it will take about a day and a half to wrap things up, so expect to see our full explanation sometime Thursday afternoon (EDT). We'll be sure to update you if that changes.

I'm sorry to draw this out longer than it already has been, but I promise the reason for the delay will become clear when we make our announcement.


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## Phantom (Mar 18, 2015)

The I told you so was on the topic of two members that I had proof they were using res' forum to manipulate people nearly a year ago.. Do I need to repost the images? I tried to tell you folks then. Instead I got in trouble. 

Actually read my posts. I only stated res and bluzzy. No one else. I have no idea why the other bans happened or how much each individual was involved. And I don't care right now. All I care about is they were somehow involved and they deserve what they got. I trust in our admins that those members were somewhat responsible, in some way, shape, or form. Big or small their individual hands in this, the ban hammer falls on all of them together. And good riddance. We don't need people like that here.


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## kyeugh (Mar 18, 2015)

Phantom said:


> Actually read my posts. I only stated res and bluzzy. No one else. I have no idea why the other bans happened or how much each individual was involved. And I don't care right now. All I care about is they were somehow involved and they deserve what they got. I trust in our admins that those members were somewhat responsible, in some way, shape, or form. Big or small their individual hands in this, the ban hammer falls on all of them together. And good riddance. We don't need people like that here.


Again, can we please not say things like this so soon?  None of us actually know everything that's happened and there's not enough on the table to start claiming that you're glad these people got what they deserved.  You can be angry, but really, it's not the time yet to go saying things like this in public.  Please.


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## Phantom (Mar 18, 2015)

I feel justice has been served. That's all I'm telling to say. I just wish people had believed me about res and the gang earlier.


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## Flora (Mar 18, 2015)

Phantom said:


> I feel justice has been served. That's all I'm telling to say. I just wish people had believed me about res and the gang earlier.


We still REALLY shouldn't be saying "I told you so." We still don't know the particulars and it's super rude.


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## Music Dragon (Mar 18, 2015)

Phantom said:


> ... too late to say I told you so, from back when I knew res and bluzzy were talking bad about members on their other forums and I screen capped proof? Too soon?





Phantom said:


> I tried to tell you folks then. Instead I got in trouble.





Phantom said:


> I feel justice has been served. That's all I'm telling to say. I just wish people had believed me about res and the gang earlier.


Come on. That's three times now, you can stop. It's not helpful. For the record, what made you "get in trouble" last time wasn't the fact that you called out res and co; it was the fact that you made it into this big public angry drama thing that just made people tired, annoyed and defensive. Which, by the way, is also precisely what happens when you say "I told you so" over and over again.


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## Phantom (Mar 18, 2015)

Fine, I'll shut up. I wasn't intending to be rude. The first was sarcasm, the rest was me just trying to get people to understand my point of view on things. I'll leave it be.


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## Negrek (Mar 19, 2015)

It's a little sooner than expected, but at this point the mod team thinks we're ready to present a full account of the recent ASB bans. It's a lot to take in, but we hope that laying it all out it will help dispel any rumors about what went on and the motives of the people involved.

Before we begin, two things:

First, I'd like to announce that Crazy Linoone has been unbanned. She was only banned at her own suggestion, and without her, we never would have known how far this went, and we would almost certainly be looking at more incidents like this down the line. As you'll see, she showed immense courage and integrity in choosing to come to us with what she knew, and we can't thank her enough for doing so. It's a relief to be able to welcome her back to the board now that evertything's out in the open.

Second, don't take this post as an invitation to tear into any of the members involved in this incident. We expect that some of you are going to be very angry by the time you get done reading this announcement. Please don't channel that anger into making inflammatory posts--you're only going to make the situation worse. If you feel the need to do so anyway, you will be infracted.

With that out of the way, I'll start with a rough timeline of events.

On Saturday a TCoD member found a chatbox sreservoir had created for its friends where they were discussing ultraviolet's private messages. They informed opaltiger that sreservoir and Mai had obtained some users' passwords and were using them to access other members' accounts, including using them to read others' private messages. In addition to banning sreservoir and Mai, opaltiger asked allitersonance, blazheirio889, and Crazy Linoone, who also posted in the chatbox, what they knew about the incident. They denied knowledge of the password-swiping and account-hijacking, and I'd like to stress that we're still not clear on how much they were aware of. They were not banned for stealing passwords or accounts; they were banned for what came later.

Monday night, ultraviolet began a discussion in the ASB mod social group about what should be done in the wake of the bans, and specifically what to do about blazheirio889, as this wasn't the first time she'd been involved in an incident like this. blazheirio889 again denied any knowledge of password swiping and claimed to have cut all contact with sreservoir and Mai because she was furious with them.

At this point, excerpts from the discussion happening in the social group appeared in sreservoir's chatbox, and it quickly became apparent that either someone in the discussion was feeding it information or at least one of the ASB mods' accounts was still compromised. I asked people to stop posting in the social group and continued discussing security measures with the other admins via e-mail.

A couple of hours after that, Butterfree received an e-mail from an anonymous Gmail account that claimed to be from Crazy Linoone and provided a screenshot of the new chatbox sreservoir and its friends had moved to. The screenshot made it very clear that blazheirio889 had been lying about no longer being in contact with sreservoir and Mai, and I banned her.

The anonymous account then provided two chat logs that revealed that blazheirio889 and allitersonance were actively conspiring with Mai and sreservoir with the intent of damaging or destroying the ASB community. At this point, the admins were decided on banning allitersonance, and we decided to ban Crazy Linoone as well, according to her own suggestion, in order to keep suspicion off her. We held off on carrying out the actual bans until Butterfree was ready to do the necessary password resets and forced log-offs. After that, I restarted discussion in the social group and provided the chat logs for other members of the group to see.

Later that night, we received a third chat log that confirmed that the board was secure again. By that point, we were quite certain that the logs were genuine, but we wanted to take some additional steps to verify this. That process was still underway when Zhorken made the first announcement. I also sent blazheirio an e-mail repeating the questions we'd asked during the social group discussion, in particular whether she was still talking with sreservoir and Mai. Rather than coming clean, she continued to insist that she had nothing to do with them. By that night the admins decided we had enough evidence to indicate that the logs were real and that the anonymous account sending them was indeed Crazy Linoone. We began preparing to make a second announcement making everything public, but Crazy Linoone asked us to hold off for a while so she could finish up some things she wanted to do first. These took less time than she was expecting, and she gave us the go-ahead to post early, which brings us to now.

Below are some excerpts from the chat logs that we think demonstrate the grounds we had to ban these members. We know that posting them publicly will cause drama, but we want to show exactly why we chose to make these bans rather than simply stating that blazheirio889 and allitersonance were involved. There are rumors going around that this is some sort of political move or the result of a grudge between some of the ASB mods, and showing the evidence we were working with is the only way we can think of to put those rumors to bed. We know that blazheirio889 and allitersonance were good friends with many of the members here, and it would be difficult to simply take at face value that they would do anything to harm the ASB community--believe us, we found it hard to understand, too. Also, some of the chat concerns members of the board who weren't involved in the investigation, and we think they deserve to know what was being said.

We've made some changes to these logs. These include reformatting them to be more readable, replacing the usernames in the logs with their corresponding TCoD usernames, removing chat not related to ASB, removing Crazy Linoone's comments, redacting some personal information (member locations etc.), and in some cases removing parts of the conversation if the member being discussed didn't want it made public. Otherwise the logs appear as we received them.



Spoiler: Chat Log Excerpts






> blazheirio889 Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 7:04:43 am
> ... gosh, you guys
> 
> Mai Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 7:04:53 am
> ...





> blazheirio889 Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 1:30:08 pm
> ... well, I got MF on my side too now
> 
> Mai Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 1:31:11 pm
> ...





> res Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 8:32:49 pm
> "I'm still kind of in shock this happened, because I thought res would
> be pretty harmless after he left TCoD a while ago and had /some/ basic
> decency, at least, and I thought Mai was a lot better than that... I'm
> ...





> res Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 8:46:14 pm
> in still mildly offended at the notion that I should not be able to
> show up wherever I damn well please though
> 
> ...





> blazheirio889 Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 8:51:05 pm
> MF is useful, he's apparently the only trustworthy ref left
> And he's on my side
> \o/





> res Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 10:50:46 pm
> "edit edit: In addition, your first post is like 'wow, I'm lucky that
> I used a different password!' so is it... likely that they would have
> gotten into your account without your permission? are you friends with
> ...





> blazheirio889 Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 10:58:07 pm
> Maybe I can twist it into "maybe res figured I cut ties and is trying
> to incriminate me in revenge"





> allitersonance Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 11:46:39 pm
> pfft
> on MF's own honour
> 
> ...





> allitersonance Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 11:08:44 pm
> pff
> I have an opening to ask
> so shall we incriminate ommibar?
> ...





> blazheirio889 Mar 16, 10:16:18 am
> Okay, texted Dragon
> Remember to keep up
> "I'm not talking to res and Mai" charades
> ...





> allitersonance Mon, Mar 16th 2015, 12:04:57 am
> shockingly people also want to get by on trusting people not to be terrible
> I mean they regard password swiping as active malice
> 
> ...





> Mai Mon, Mar 16th 2015, 1:37:10 pm
> bluzzy is banned but we're still keeping up the charade of her not talking to us
> 
> res Mon, Mar 16th 2015, 1:37:20 pm
> ...





> blazheirio889 Mon, Mar 16th 2015, 2:36:55 pm
> ... I actually haven't eaten much because nervousness gets to my stomach
> 
> Mai Mon, Mar 16th 2015, 2:37:46 pm
> ...





> res Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 11:14:58 pm
> "Again, it wasn't about KNOCKING ZHORKEN OFF THE THRONE AND RECLAIMING MY RIGHTFUL SEAT, it just." pffh it totally was





> blazheirio889 Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 6:05:24 pm
> btw should I look like I've cut off contact with res and Mai, or should I confirm I'm still in contact with you guys if asked?
> 
> allitersonance Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 6:09:40 pm
> ...





> blazheirio889 Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 8:19:13 pm
> I dunno, but who did we discuss having PM conversations with uv anyway?
> 
> allitersonance Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 8:19:58 pm
> ...





> blazheirio889 Mon, Mar 16th 2015, 5:51:27 pm
> we are all free \o/
> 
> allitersonance Mon, Mar 16th 2015, 5:51:30 pm
> ...





> Crazy Linoone Mon, Mar 16th 2015, 7:42:22 pm
> but everyone is free?
> 
> allitersonance Mon, Mar 16th 2015, 7:42:26 pm
> ...






If you would like to see the full logs (still only ASB-related conversation), you can read them in the next post.

I'd like to stress that these events don't diminish the contributions allitersonance and blazheirio889 have made to ASB over the years. Many people here considered them friends, and they will be sorely missed. However, we consider their behavior in this matter unacceptable.


----------



## Negrek (Mar 19, 2015)

Spoiler: Full Logs






> blazheirio889 Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 7:04:43 am
> ... gosh, you guys
> 
> Mai Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 7:04:53 am
> ...





> Mai Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 7:32:22 am
> [tumblr link redacted]
> ... I think I'd rather just leave that be unless Storm contacts me directly
> [tumblr link redacted]
> ...





> blazheirio889 Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 12:51:17 pm
> Well I just read all the messages since I last posted but seems like nothing of import?
> ... brb
> 
> ...





> res Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 1:18:44 pm
> mimi leaving things hanging is kind of embarrassing and in this case it was that ils would have to get a new test battle set up
> well now ils will have to get a new battle set up, and eh no further problems on my end
> 
> ...





> Mai Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 1:31:11 pm
> "res stormed off, got replaced, then both mimi and res got ejected, also gevaisa itself is AWOLes stormed off, got replaced, then both mimi and res got ejected, also gevaisa itself is AWOL" allie bluzzy nini one of you replace me and ditch
> 
> allitersonance Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 1:31:42 pm
> ...





> Mai Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 1:37:12 pm
> "mimi leaving things hanging is kind of embarrassing and in this case it was that ils would have to get a new test battle set up" show conversations
> 
> res Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 1:37:18 pm
> ...





> Mai Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 1:37:48 pm
> ones that led to ban





> res Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 1:38:15 pm
> allie go fetch it, it's just the one most recent post
> 
> allitersonance Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 1:40:32 pm
> ...





> Crazy Linoone Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 2:51:35 pm
> yeah but brb gotta do a thing in meatspace
> 
> Mai Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 2:51:43 pm
> ...





> hm where does auntie allie belong in all this
> huh ... I'm not sure I understand actually
> where I would have gotten poo's password, either
> that makes at least two mysteries
> ...





> res Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 3:24:40 pm
> "3) It's probably reasonable to assume that res can read this, too, although I've changed my password a while ago. (res if you can read this, hi there)" NINI
> 
> Mai Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 3:25:14 pm (from my pm response to opaltiger's questioning. Figured it'd be sketchy if I refused to post it.)
> ...





> Mai Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 3:48:26 pm
> hm you know from the fallout I've seen on tumblr I'd expect other people to either rant at me or unfollow me or both by now
> MIRUKU
> 
> ...





> blazheirio889 Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 6:05:24 pm
> potatoes
> Can confirm, have white boytoy
> btw should I look like I've cut off contact with res and Mai, or should I confirm I'm still in contact with you guys if asked?
> ...





> res Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 11:58:04 pm
> geez allie you're so KY
> 
> allitersonance Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 11:58:36 pm
> ...





> blazheirio889 Mon, Mar 16th 2015, 6:17:28 am
> I guess I am freed??
> 
> allitersonance Mon, Mar 16th 2015, 6:43:27 am
> ...





> allitersonance Mar 16, 10:45:01 am
> nini's usertitle is [broke ASB] exactly what we need
> 
> Mai Mar 16, 10:46:12 am
> ...





> blazheirio889 Mon, Mar 16th 2015, 11:59:28 am
> I shouldn't have peeked back into ASB :C Keldeo thinks that a Taunted Pokemon shouldn't default to its offensive option
> ... oh, well, not like I'm responsible for refs now anymore I guess
> ... you know, on the off chance that they just banned me for security reasons and are going to lift the ban after they beef up security, I don't think I'll go back anyway
> ...





> Mai Mon, Mar 16th 2015, 1:37:10 pm
> bluzzy is banned but we're still keeping up the charade of her not talking to us
> 
> res Mon, Mar 16th 2015, 1:37:20 pm
> ...





> allitersonance Mon, Mar 16th 2015, 1:57:09 pm
> you fully nuked the cbox?
> gosh how are you going to taunt them with knowledge you shouldn't have or admit you have now





> blazheirio889 Mon, Mar 16th 2015, 2:36:55 pm
> ... I actually haven't eaten much because nervousness gets to my stomach
> 
> Mai Mon, Mar 16th 2015, 2:37:46 pm
> ...





> Mai Mon, Mar 16, 5:01:38 pm
> I'm incapable of GIVE UP GIVE UP though
> I actually did need to get banned
> 
> ...





> allitersonance Mon, Mar 16, 5:45:28 pm
> welp
> I've been banned
> 
> ...





> allitersonance Mon, Mar 16, 6:44:29 pm
> bluzzy you can now truthfully say we have each other's skype but. still hiding hivemind or
> 
> blazheirio889 Mon, Mar 16, 6:58:34 pm
> ...





> Mai Mon, Mar 16, 7:21:49 pm
> I seemed innocent until now and was idly liked, I think? so when I fell, I fell hard, I guess
> that PM exchange was when res and bluzzy were talking shit about Phantom though
> I said no because the incident was swept under the rug enough by the time he asked
> ...





> Crazy Linoone Mon, Mar 16, 7:40:21 pm
> maybe they just banned everyone for fun and profit?
> 
> res Mon, Mar 16, 7:40:28 pm
> ...


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## Autumn (Mar 19, 2015)

what the actual fuck, are they saying they wanted to completely destroy ASB over ... something ... that happened 3 years ago is this the goddamn implication


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## I liek Squirtles (Mar 19, 2015)

:(

I looked up to these people and really enjoyed their company. I don't know what exactly happened in the battle for asber thing, but I doubt that they needed to retaliate.


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## Vipera Magnifica (Mar 19, 2015)

I... don't know what to say. I'm just shocked and appalled by these members' behavior :(

I would like to thank the admin staff for investigating so thoroughly and taking the necessary actions to stop this. And I'd also like to thank Crazy Linoone for doing the right thing and coming forward with this information.


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## Crazy Linoone (Mar 19, 2015)

(This post hasn't been proofread, so apologies for any mistakes.)

On March 7th (that's about 11 days ago), I decided to check my spam mailbox in 2.5 years and discovered that I had recently received an email from Mai and res asking me where I've been, that they miss me, and that they want me back.

And, well, here we are.

First, I want to thank Negrek for how well they handled all of this. Negrek had been really supportive and understanding the whole way through all the email exchanges, and was very good about making sure that I'm not forced into doing something I'm uncomfortable with. I'm also very glad that they and the mod team decided to release all of this information like this -- I think it'll do a lot of good to be able to talk about this drama rather than trying to shove it under the carpet.

What res and co. did is terrible. People have sensitive conversations in their PMs, and it's up to themselves to judge whether they're comfortable sharing it with others. Manipulating and lying to people are also pretty shitty things to do.

However, I will say this:_ I honestly don't think res, Mai, Blazhy, and Allitersonance meant any malice._

"How could they not mean any malice! Look at that chatlog!" You say. A lot of people are shocked that Blazhy and Mai would do something like this, and, frankly, I was too -- I hadn't expected to come back from my 2.5 years of disappearance to, well, this.

I think what had happened was just a whole lot of foolishness and apathy.

res thought it's funny to read people's PMs. That's the entire reason. res is a fool who doesn't quite understand that actions have consequences, and that maybe it should consider other people's feelings before doing something, _maybe_. If it makes anyone feel better, I don't think res or Mai ever accessed anyone's emails or other accounts outside of TCoD-related things (various BfA forums and TCoD itself), so you don't need to wonder about stolen credit card information or anything.

As for Mai, Blazhy, and Allie -- they just kind of ... went along with what res did because they enjoyed hanging out with res, and it's easier that way. Blazhy didn't have enough initiative to report, and she had cared enough about her TCoD friendships to try to keep them (by lying, not her finest decision). And allitersonance considered reporting, but decided that she didn't really care enough about TCoD or ASB to do anything about it (she also says that she didn't realize that res had been stealing passwords until recently.)

In the end, it's just _so easy_ to go along with what your friends when they do something bad. It's so easy to rationalize it away. Admitting that your friend might be not the good person you thought they were is hard. Taking action against that your friend is even harder. And so you go along with them, not really thinking about the impact of your actions until everything comes crashing down on 2.5 years later.

I won't blame you for being angry, or for wanting to never trusting them again. And it is Blazhy, Mai, and Allie's own responsibility to not act like decent human beings, no matter whose friend they were. But don't think of them as evil bad people then walk away feeling high and mighty, because that's not how it works. 

---

I'm not going to pretend I'm a perfectly innocent bystander. I had known from BfA that res had been accessing information that I didn't have. I had honestly just assumed that res has been getting it through legitimate means -- lurking in IRC servers, outright asking people for them and having them give it to you (social engineering is surprisingly easy since people love talking about themselves), having access to some other forums where people hang out -- I didn't think res would be the type of person who'd actually breach people's privacy, because, well, res was my friend.

I think if I had sat down and thought about it for a while, I would've figured out that res was getting its information from stolen password. But I didn't. And time passed, BfA ended, I left, and I thought all the drama would've over...

In the end, I don't know if I would've been able to report res and co. if I had hung out with them for the past 2.5 years. I might've not even seen the lying and manipulation as "bad", because, well, nobody else in the group pointed it out as bad.

It's so, so easy to make excuses.

---

Blazhy has a few things to say to TCoD; her last words, if you will:

Blazhy is sincerely sorry for all this drama, and that mentoring the new refs had been the most fun she's had in ASB for a really long time. It had been very tolling for her (and many members of the group) to keep up the facade, and she regrets not having the initiative to come out and end the whole thing. And: "I think all I have to say is that I understand their decision and I'm completely grateful about it, because I think everyone is better off now (including us, because we're free)".

Of course, it's up to you whether you believe her though.

----

Some notes about the Chatlog

People in the chat tend towards exaggeration for humor, so take with a grain of salt when people say things like IMPEACH ZHORKEN (it's less of a "toss Zhorken out the window" and more of a "if someone with more experience take over ASB rulings, Zhorken can focus on the Database, and everyone will be happier" compressed and turned into a meme.)

Chatlog, and "Removing Crazy Linoone's comments"

I had annotated the log with commentary and clarifications/translations -- turned out that I was wrongly interpreting some things as new information rolled in, so I requested Negrek to remove them to decrease misunderstanding. The clarifications/translations are still there though -- the formatting's kinda janky, but they're all in parentheses. 

If you're wondering about the content non-ASB related chatlog -- it's basically spam. Things like what we ate for lunch / people not going to sleep even though they should / how someone almost fainted from not eating food / random links from the internet / so on and so forth. 

--- 

...I have a lot more thoughts about this, on how things could've gone and how things should've gone, but I'm tired and I wanna sleep. With that said, I'll probably be without internet for the next 3 days so please don't blow up on me too much thanks bye.


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## Phantom (Mar 19, 2015)

Ugh, to think I had access to it all, but got banned before I couldget anything from it besides the stuff about bluzzy manipulating me.


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## ultraviolet (Mar 19, 2015)

The main reason that I personally wanted these logs posted is because I know these poeple have a lot of friends on this forum, some of which they might actually still be talking to and claiming their innocence. I don't really care about that very much. If any of you still want to be friends with people, that's none of my business (and you're not going to be like, banned for it or something). What I really wanted is for people to be making *informed choices* about what these people are like. If you're friends with these people, I want you to think critically about your friendship with them and decide if you're okay with all of this shit that's been going on. You're not a bad person if you don't want to be friends with someone because they do things you don't like. 



Crazy Linoone said:


> However, I will say this:_ I honestly don't think res, Mai, Blazhy, and Allitersonance meant any malice._
> 
> "How could they not mean any malice! Look at that chatlog!" You say. A lot of people are shocked that Blazhy and Mai would do something like this, and, frankly, I was too -- I hadn't expected to come back from my 2.5 years of disappearance to, well, this.


This isn't really directed at you; I just want to speak openly about it.

I think you can look at this situation two ways.

The first way you can look at this is that they were being malicious. I look at the logs and remember everything I've experienced with these guys ... and I just have to wonder how any of them forgot that the things they were doing were really, seriously problematic. They discuss with each other in the logs whether it's advantageous to keep lying to the social group so blazheirio889 won't be banned. They discuss several times openly about manipulating people so they'll have them 'on their side'. They talk about whose accounts they have access to and joke about us believing some of the things they lied about. They're *self-aware* about the discussion they're having, and a lot of it does seem genuinely malicious. There are also several mentions of laughing about how ASB will burn to the ground without them, how they're destroying ASB, how funny it is that they're lying to people and making them upset. 

For example, I personally confronted Mai and vented my frustration about  this (Mai accessed my account specifically) because I thought Mai was  cool and I thought we could be friends; they basically deflected and  didn't respond to me at all. You can later see Mai joking that 'uv has  decided that I'm a terrible person now'. That isn't the actions of a  person who didn't think they were doing any harm and just joking around,  sorry. It's kind of unambiguously mean.

Keep in mind that the actual rules they broke - breaking into people's accounts, using the Mod CP to track IPs, reading through people's private messages - are actual serious behaviours that usually have real-life consequences. This is the kind of thing that you would get fired for at a job or expelled from school for - or at worst, you could potentially face legal action or the law. I say this a lot, but we're a tiny pokemon forum with ~100 active members. The worst consequence they could face from us is a ban (which isn't even foolproof). 



The other way they could look at this is that they didn't _mean _to be malicious and just thought it was funny. I feel like probably a few of those involved didn't intend to actually do  harm to people by getting involved in things like this. When you're  friends with people who make bad decisions but their friendships are  valuable to you, you can rationalise it and ignore the bad parts and  keep being friends with them. Eventually these bad behaviours don't even  register as a big deal anymore and you kind of stop thinking about it. I  get that. 

But even if you look at it this way, when someone does things that affect you, it's a two-way street. Someone can accidentally step on your sandcastle and not _intend _to upset you, but that can still be really upsetting! Because your sandcastle has a giant foot imprint in the middle of it, and that really sucks, but you'd understand if it was an accident. You probably won't hate someone for that.

But you'd probably hate someone for... standing on your sandcastle because they thought it was funny. They didn't do it with the expressed purpose of doing it to make you feel bad, but you're probably going to be upset because that's a dick thing to do. You'd probably be more upset if it was a really big sandcastle and they'd helped you build it and pretended to be super excited about it. You'd probably be even more upset if they did this multiple times, even after you telling them that it was a mean thing to do. 

The good thing about sandcastles is that they're made out of sand and you can fix them pretty easily! You can scoop up all the broken bits, pick out all the shells and get those assholes escorted off the beach.

There are several instances in those logs where they're gloating that ASB is going to be ruined now. I'm not really interested in seeing that happen.


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## Ether's Bane (Mar 19, 2015)

Crazy Linoone said:


> I think what had happened was just a whole lot of foolishness and apathy.
> 
> res thought it's funny to read people's PMs. That's the entire reason. res is a fool who doesn't quite understand that actions have consequences, and that maybe it should consider other people's feelings before doing something, _maybe_. If it makes anyone feel better, I don't think res or Mai ever accessed anyone's emails or other accounts outside of TCoD-related things (various BfA forums and TCoD itself), so you don't need to wonder about stolen credit card information or anything.
> 
> ...


With this in mind, I would like to post one of my favourite quotes:

"It's better to be a lion for a day than a sheep all your life." - Elizabeth Kenny


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## Music Dragon (Mar 19, 2015)

Crazy Linoone said:


> However, I will say this:_ I honestly don't think res, Mai, Blazhy, and Allitersonance meant any malice._
> 
> "How could they not mean any malice! Look at that chatlog!" You say. A lot of people are shocked that Blazhy and Mai would do something like this, and, frankly, I was too -- I hadn't expected to come back from my 2.5 years of disappearance to, well, this.
> 
> ...


I can see where you're coming from, but I disagree; I think you're biased in their favor because they were your friends (which is understandable). If they were _just_ stealing people's passwords, sneaking into their accounts, reading private information, and trying to hide it... then I might perhaps buy the idea that they weren't being actively malicious. But comments like


> res Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 11:01:59 pm
> "that is, unless they're still in my account and somehow got the new password!!! because fuck me, right!!!" because fuck you yeah but unrelated


are hard to read as anything other than genuinely mean-spirited, and there are several exchanges... 



> allitersonance Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 11:08:44 pm
> so shall we incriminate ommibar?
> [...]
> res Sun, Mar 15th 2015, 11:53:06 pm
> allie come on, go implicate more important people :33


... where they discuss framing innocent people.

Honestly, I don't see how anyone could doubt that this is active malice. It is definitely not a case of "I don't care enough to report my friend"; they are all active participants in this whole thing, and some of them have apparently been confronted about their actions and were wholly unrepentant.

Personally, I believe that if you go out of your way to ruin things for other people and you think it's fun, then that makes you a bad person. Not a _thoroughly_ bad person, not an _irredeemably_ bad person - in that sense I agree with you - but nevertheless a bad person. Sometimes people get swept up in things and end up in deeper shit than they expect. But the attitude matters. If you sit around mocking the people you're hurting while proclaiming yourself an asshole, I don't think you deserve much sympathy.

And yeah, I get that a lot of this stuff is tongue-in-cheek, but they're still clearly aware that what they're doing is wrong. Why should you make excuses for these people when they're not even doing it for themselves?

That being said, I respect your feelings on this matter, and you know what you're talking about better than I do. I'd also like to take the opportunity to express my gratitude. You've done us a tremendous service. Thank you for helping out with this mess.


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## Autumn (Mar 19, 2015)

It may be relevant for those of us not in ASB to know what the hell happened in the Battle of Asber thing that started all this.


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## Phantom (Mar 19, 2015)

I'm agreeing with uv and MD here. And Altissimo. I mean I was in the Battle, but barely and did nothing much besides follow the group concensus on what moves to use. Besides that, I saw nothing and only know what I've been told which sums to 'res and his followers are assholes', to put it frankly. 

As for res, I mostly blame him. res in my mind manipulated and brainwashed these people. We all knew these people, active members all, all of them being here for many years. And all of us have the same reaction, disbelief. But seeing these logs... some of them even talk like him. Act like him. He was a bad influence on them, my opinion. Because res has ALWAYS acted like that, even since the first day I met him and he chewed me out in a thread about web design and butchered any self confidence I might have had. He likes to boast and act like he is above everyone. And here I see these people latched on to him and he loved every minute of it because he believed they were basking in his glory. He invaded peoples privacy for the sake of amusement.  Like uv said with the sandcastle analogy. He just wants to piss people off and watch them squirm because he likes having power over people. 

And while this is a small no name forum, should they have accessed personal information, any at all like phone numbers, addresses, etc it could have real world consequences. Had they used that password to access other things that that user used that same password for they could implicate peoples' lives even more. 

But he doesn't care. It's his amusement. He didnt care if there were consequences, he doesn't care that he led these people to be banned.

That's just my opinion.


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## Tailsy (Mar 19, 2015)

i just realised that i've had the asb board masked for so long (i mean also i don't even go here any more rly w/e) that i had no idea it had started again. or even stopped in the first place.

best most active and relevant mod ever goes 2 me. party hats


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## Vipera Magnifica (Mar 19, 2015)

Mai, blazhy, and allitersonance may have just been "going along" with res's actions, but they were still fully aware of what they were doing. In doing so, they _chose_ their friendship with res over their friendship with everyone else on this forum. Had they valued the trust and respect of the members of this forum more, they would not have chosen to actively participate in these schemes.

If there's one thing I take away from this, it's that we have to make ASB grow even stronger. If you want to be angry with this group, channel it into making ASB a better place for everyone. If it really was their intention to "burn ASB to the ground", then we can't let them have their way. Show them that this will not ruin our fun.


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## Crazy Linoone (Mar 19, 2015)

Using leeched wifi to pop in and say some things:

UV is pretty much exactly on point. 

I'd like to think that blazhy and co. just don't realize how bad their actions had been because it's been going on for 2.5 years and they got used to it, but maybe I'm wrong, because, well, people change in 2.5 years. 

Honestly, I don't blame you all for hating these people forever and never wanting to talk to them ever again -- even if you're stepping on someone's sandcastle because you think it's funny, not because you're actually trying to make someone sad and angry, _you're still stepping on someone's sandcastle_. It's still a shitty thing to do. And there is a reason I chose to leak the chatlogs to get everyone banned rather than trying to let them continue the lies... 



Altissimo said:


> It may be relevant for those of us not in ASB to know what the hell happened in the Battle of Asber thing that started all this.


Uhhh, *tl;dr* is that Negrek planned this big mosh-pit-style battle sort of thing where the normal trainers of ASB had to fight 3 legendary Pokemon. The ASBer group found out too late that there were spies, and everyone ended up being overworked and bitter because of the perceived unfairness. 

Longer version is: 
Negrek planned this big mosh-pit-style battle sort of thing where the normal trainers of ASB had to fight 3 legendary Pokemon.

There was a private forums/chatbox/something outside of TCoD where the people controlling the legendary Pokemon discussed strategies. There was one for the 30-something Asber battlers as well; it was ran by bulbasaur. I believe this is where res stole all the passwords. 

Blazhy, res, and I were the most active participants in the Asber group; we basically came up with most of the strategy for all the pokemon each round. Mai, The Omskivar, and Metallica Fanboy, and some other members were also active, but not nearly as much. Most other people just kind of stayed silent or lurked (sometimes, not even that.)

As far as I can tell, drama reached official levels of existence when it became painfully clear by Round 5 that there had been a spy in the midst of the 30-something ASB trainers. Ever since Round 1, our group's plans had failed as if they've been systematically picked apart -- as if someone had been able to see the exact thing they could do to break through all our backup plans... We weren't dealing enough damage per pokemon to win, and Blazhy, I, res, and Mai had felt really overworked, especially since most people weren't participating. (Not sure about Omski and MF and the other people because I haven't asked them :p) We refused to suspect anyone of spying because TEAMWORK!!! and whatnot, so blazhy, res, and I (and possibly some other people but I don't quite remember) drafted an PM to Negrek asking about the spies.

In Round 7, Negrek officially revealed that there had been spies in our midst all along, who were revealed to be Coloursfall and High-Moon. The people previously controlling the three legendaries (Kratos, pathos, and Allitersonance) had also been really overworked, and they stepped down to let Colours and Moony take control. 

The rest of Asber had fled to a new secret forums (run by res) by that point, and but everyone's really overworked and bitter by now. I don't know how much of the bitterness leaked outside of the private forums, but it's evidently enough to make Negrek shut down the entire ASB. 

All the drama kind of got shoved under the carpet, and people moved on/forgot about it/continue to nurse their bitterness... Blazhy, res, Mai, and a bunch of other people started rebuilding ASB; I had been too burnt out by this point and busy with real life to continue, so I kind of disappeared for 2.5 years.

I don't know the details of how ASB came back to life; I don't know what happened with Phantom; and I'm also not quite sure exactly how res and Allitersonance ended up being friends, since Allie wasn't on our side -- supposedly res found the chatbox where the legendaries had been planning their commands, and they've been chatting ever since then or something. 



Phantom said:


> As for res, I mostly blame him. res in my mind manipulated and brainwashed these people. We all knew these people, active members all, all of them being here for many years. And all of us have the same reaction, disbelief. But seeing these logs... some of them even talk like him. Act like him. He was a bad influence on them, my opinion.


Blaming everything on res is probably giving it too much credit. 

Yes, res did a lot of shitty things. But, be really honest with yourself -- if res hadn't been an asshole to you, and instead actually cared about you, would you have done anything? 



			
				Vipera Magnifica said:
			
		

> Mai, blazhy, and allitersonance may have just been "going along" with res's actions, but they were still fully aware of what they were doing. In doing so, they chose their friendship with res over their friendship with everyone else on this forum. Had they valued the trust and respect of the members of this forum more, they would not have chosen to actively participate in these schemes.


I mean, yeah, they're closer friends with each other than with anyone else on the forums. I think _I'm_ still closer friends with them than anyone else on the forums...


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## Phantom (Mar 19, 2015)

Honestly? (Can't quote Linoone, cell phone)

I've seen res on many occasions be an ass to many people. 

another bit with Phantom. I was entered in the last rounds of the Battle. Didn't even offocially make a move. I was invited to res' forum. I left after bfa but was reinvited during a game of mafia where the mafia plotted there. I tried to make an account before I realized I was already a member and that's where it clicked that it was the same forum from way back during bfa. After the mafia I forgot about it again. Then I remembered the place back when I made the Activity of Doom thread where we realized about the ASB moddings that had been done behind closed doors. I remembered that forum and realized that might be where they were all talking. 

See I was ticked that those who I'd come to learn destroyed ASB were now given power over it. 

So I logged on. This is after I respond to a PM from bluzzy apologizing ahead of time and offering peace since they don't want bad blood. 

Then I see the forums, and I see posts where they were systematically mocking me and manipulating me. Bluzzy had said it was obvious I'd been talking to the 'ragelump' people, most of the people who left tcod after the bfa... which I was. (Where I learned it was more than being worn out, it was many insults and lying that ruined it ) Bluzzy then asked res if they should send a PM to try to shut me up about bfa and their involvement. Bluzzy drafted the post, res approved it and it was sent to me. Bluzzy then copied my response, etc, all while mocking me. I posted. Called them assholes. Screen capped the thread and posted it here. 

I was snooping around res'forums by now. Aside from many convos talking badly about other members most were rants about ASB. before I could get any further, res banned me. They had a mini panic attack when they realized the mistake they made with their hole in security, backtracked like hell. Then I got scrutinised because I wasn't dropping it because I'd seen the forums and knew there was more going on. 

That was my involvement.


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## M&F (Mar 19, 2015)

I'm gonna need to not be on mobile before I comment as I intend to on here, but just on the BfA discussion (and since, again, mobile, look out for 1000 typos): I'd the incident can't really be cited as a major cause of the current situation. The passwords were taken through the BfA forums by all appearances, but that seems to be about it; since that snafu, there have been three years, across which almost all of the newlybans, sooner or later, have provided extensive contributions to building the cuerent ASB rather than destroying it. If they wanted to ruin the game primarily because of BfA, they could have done so sooner and faster.

Discussion of the past incidents may or may not be otherwise relevant to judgement, but in any case, as a subject that doesn't _need_ to be discussed right now, I'd be very careful not to stir up any new drama.


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## Eifie (Mar 19, 2015)

Mmm, I've been wondering whether to say anything about that. I believe that those who were banned were most definitely _not_ always planning to burn ASB to the ground in retaliation for the Battle for Asber or whatever; after they were banned, I believe they thought it would be funny if ASB were to die without them in "revenge". That's all. As such, I don't think bringing up all the bad feelings associated with the events of however many years ago is too relevant to the discussion.


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## Sandstone-Shadow (Mar 19, 2015)

Just to clarify, passwords were only taken from forums that were owned by res? They weren't taken directly from TCoDf or the current ASB Database?


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## Negrek (Mar 19, 2015)

Correct.

Edit: Well, to be totally correct, either res' forums or forums he had a hand in running (I believe the compromised BfA forum was actually set up by bulbasaur). Definitely not TCoD or ASBDB, though.


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## DrClef (Mar 19, 2015)

Those MOTHERFUCKERS.


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## Zekrom_B0lt (Mar 19, 2015)

on an asb related matter ( i'm not sure how many encountered this ), however i tried to log in to the asb db with my original log in & it said invalid 


Will i need to re register then move my pokemon & items to the new asb db account ?


how long untill a reset password system works for the asb db ?


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## Murkrow (Mar 19, 2015)

Thanks Crazy Linoone for the explanation about what BfA is.
(and also for taking the whole thing up with the mods in the first place as well I guess!)

And re: Phantom's posts, I can't help but notice that every time drama happens here there's pretty much always some amount of people mocking other members behind their backs :c

I've got to wonder why the forums res ran presumably stored the passwords as plaintext in the first place, though.


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## Herbe (Mar 20, 2015)

I'm wondering about that too, Murkrow. Maybe he did an email that says you have to change your password like a phishing thing? That's a pretty big security breach right there on those forums imo.


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## ultraviolet (Mar 20, 2015)

Zekrom_B0lt said:


> on an asb related matter ( i'm not sure how many encountered this ), however i tried to log in to the asb db with my original log in & it said invalid
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Uh, no, you should have received a temporary password from Zhorken. Use that to log in and change your password.


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## Zhorken (Mar 20, 2015)

No, he hasn't.  I reset everyone's password _again_ by mistake last night, and I haven't fixed that yet.

I made a news post about it on the db but I guess I'll cross-post it here since I'm going to delete it sometime next week (the ASBdb is the most impressive project on my résumé and I don't want employers seeing that):



			
				Passwords reset again because I am an idiot said:
			
		

> I went to reset Crazy Linoone's password but I tweaked the password reset script without testing it and ended up resetting _everyone's_ passwords.
> 
> If I PMed you a temporary password a couple days ago, that's your temporary password again. (If you went through two temp passwords, the second one is your temporary password again.) If you're still logged in, and you're not one of the ones who got a temporary password, you can just set your password in settings. (I forcibly logged everyone out a couple nights ago so this should be safe; nobody but you will be already logged in.)
> 
> ...


I've had zero motivation to do anything all day, in the wake of all this, but I'll get the password thing finished now.  Sorry.


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## Wargle (Mar 20, 2015)

My temporary password isn't working


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## Music Dragon (Mar 20, 2015)

Zhorken said:


> I've had zero motivation to do anything all day, in the wake of all this, but I'll get the password thing finished now.  Sorry.


Don't rush! This has been a really, really rough week for you, and you've done plenty for us already. I think you deserve some rest!


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## Superbird (Mar 20, 2015)

Wargle said:


> My temporary password isn't working


Same with me.


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## Zhorken (Mar 20, 2015)

Uugggggh fuck.  Are you sure you didn't just reset it after I messed up? :(

Is there anyone else this is happening to?  ... Is there anyone who can confirm that their temporary password _has_ worked since I messed up (4:22 UTC last night)?


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## Zhorken (Mar 20, 2015)

Alright, I have determined that I did, indeed, give _everyone_ the wrong temporary password second time round.  (Nobody who got a temporary password has changed their password since last night, and while I can't tell what passwords I _did_ give people, I can tell that none of them were the right ones.  I was just that stressed last night I guess.)

So anyway those should all work again, and everyone else should be sorted out soon.


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## Crazy Linoone (Mar 20, 2015)

Murkrow said:


> I've got to wonder why the forums res ran presumably stored the passwords as plaintext in the first place, though.


According to res at least, it never stole the passwords from its own forums. It stole the passwords by hooking a custom script on to bulbasaur's forums (the first iteration of BfA forums). I don't think bulbasaur was aware that his forums were being tampered with. 



			
				Phantom said:
			
		

> Drama things


Thanks for explaining what happened! 



			
				people said:
			
		

> Something about BfA


I definitely don't think BfA is the sole source of all the drama going on; it's the only part of the drama that I know about though (since I left TCoD after BfA ended). And I guess I know a bit about Phantom-related drama as well... If anyone else was around for any other drama that has happened after BfA is over and want to bring it to light, now would be a good time. 



			
				Zhorken said:
			
		

> Database Admin Stuff


Thanks! Zhorken, go take care of yourself :<


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## Zhorken (Mar 20, 2015)

ALRIGHT it's done.  You can now reset your password if you set an email address.  If you didn't, I'll send you a temporary password, if I haven't already.


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## Zhorken (Mar 20, 2015)

Aaaaand temporary passwords are out now.  If you didn't get one, that should mean you have an email address set and can recover it that way, but if I missed someone, let me know.


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## Lord Mewtwo (Sep 14, 2016)

I've been away from CoDF for some time and haven't really known anyone around here let alone these people nor have I ever participated in this ASB thing but skimming through this thread, a particular comment impacted me:



Vipera Magnifica said:


> I'm still sad that so many of the people on this forum were part of the "Asberluminati". These were people I trusted and looked up to, and to see them turn on other members of the forum is... Well, it's really quite awful :(
> 
> I really, _really_ want to believe some of them were innocent, but I suppose we'll have to see what the admins' investigations find out.


Eleven years ago, some online companions of mine within a community who'd I'd considered friends and had thought they'd reciprocated had one day taken the lead of a particular mod who'd always treated me like dirt although I never did a damn thing to him and lynch mobbed me.
I'm not going to disclose the full story as it's long and irrelevant to the point.

What I'm illustrating by even sharing a glimpse of my experience is that Vipera Magnifica here had really made me empathize with the feeling of betrayal that had overtaken this community in light of this uprising and I am here now, although it is quite belated, to send my heart out to those who were affected by it both by having their account be among those that were compromised and emotionally because they'd put their trust in and perhaps friendship towards the offenders. 

Moving on from something like this can be difficult, believe me, I know and I am very glad to see that this forum has the dedicated staff and members to thoroughly put an end to this and recover the community so miraculously; a big round of applause to Crazy Linoone for her role. Reading the post that accounted the entire investigation, not to mention the fantastic relief effort for the compromised accounts kind of thrilled me because it felt like something out of one of my favorite crime dramas. You guys are just amazing. 

Hopefully, as a result of such fine work the affected have been able to feel comfortable continuing to participate here and in the ASB thing.


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